Seen Gossip Girls? Teen TV Shows Glorify Being Spoiled and Rich

Those innocent days when adolescents drooled over photos of J. Lo or dreamed of becoming Mrs. Leonardo DiCaprio are gone for good. Now, obscene amounts of money and ultra-luxe material goods are the only worthy pin-up icons for Generation Text-Message.

The current “must have” for shows aimed at younger viewers is teenaged characters whose conspicuous consumption and jaw-dropping sense of entitlement could knock the shoulder pads right out of Alexis Carrington’s power suits.

Parents may simply be tempted to roll their eyes at these characters’ antics. But it’s a different story for their kids.

How you gonna keep ‘em down on the farm—or, at least, content to wear retail—when Colin, the self-proclaimed “Crowned Prince of Cleveland,” gets two new cars and a dance troupe comelier than the Laker Girls as his personal posse on an episode of MTV’s My Super Sweet 16?

On Gossip Girl, a new CW series, Chuck addresses another member of his wealthy teenaged clique: “What we’re entitled to is a trust fund, maybe a house in the Hamptons, and a prescription drug problem,” Chuck lectures Nate in the first episode. Whether it’s wine, weed, or in this case, sex with a hot young woman, Chuck explains that they both deserve only the best. “So smoke up and seal the deal with Blair, cuz you’re entitled to tap that ass.”

Charming, Chuck.

Meanwhile, pardon me while I “tap” a rerun of The Nanny or something else equally highbrow. But then, I’m hardly the target audience for this heavily promoted fictional show where an unseen, all-seeing blogger (“Gossip Girl here, and I have the biggest news … ”) chronicles the texting-and-trashtalking, wasteful-spending-and-getting-wasted lives of pampered Upper East Side highschoolers.

Who else but teens (and maybe their younger siblings) would want to watch a show where drama swirls around one super-pretty girl’s deliberate attempt to exclude another from something called the “Kiss on the Lips” party?

The problem is that what teen watching wouldn’t want to be Nate, Blair, and the rest of their limo-riding, Champagne-quaffing, no-adults-anywhere-at-this-hot-club partying cohorts?